Ended up in Nashville

I ended up staying in Nashville for only two days in the end. The city itself is surprisingly small and the tourist area really is restricted to a few blocks around Broadway. I went out on Thursday to a few of the local bars and ended up having a very enjoyable evening. There’s a couple of pictures on the photo’s page from one of the bars I ended up in – The Beer Sellar. One is of me and the other a couple called Karen and Scott that I was talking to and drinking with. There were a few other pictures but they either didn’t come out to well or I have no idea who the people were in the pics. I ended up getting a taxi home from there at about 3 am. Thankfully I had the good sense not to walk.

Anyway, I spent the next couple of days saving money by staying at another campsite which is turning out to be a very enjoyable, peaceful and cheap way of living. The place I was staying was by a lake so there were quite a few people fishing but I just hung around reading my book or going for bike rides. Also, as it was Tennessee, I had a surprisingly hard time trying to figure out what these people were actually saying. If anyone has ever seen Boomhower on King Of The Hill you’ll know how I felt. So, this morning though I decided it was time to get back into civilization.

I’m now in Memphis. I would be out whooping it up on Beale Street but there is a tornado supposed to be coming through in the next few hours and I don’t fancy negotiating my way home in it. Apparently, the neighbouring state of Arkansas has been badly hit by a couple of big storm that destroyed a number of houses causing over $35 worth of damage. Talking of which, when I drove into Memphis today I was astonished at what a really poverty stricken place this is. I’m sure when I go touring around in the next couple of days I’ll see the more acceptable side but from what I’ve seen so far, this has to be the most depressingly poor town I’ve ever seen – and I’ve been to Newark. Every town has its poorer sections but this seems to be wholly made up of poorer sections. Still, we’ll see tomorrow. I’ve really been looking forward to visiting here – not only the jook joints of Beale Street but of course Graceland, Sun Studio and the Stax Museum. I’m going to stay here for a couple of days but I’ll probably book into the local hostel to save a few bucks.